{"id":6430,"date":"2025-07-19T17:45:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T17:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/6430\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T17:45:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T17:45:25","slug":"vulnerable-mental-health-service-user-exposes-deadly-crisis-in-glasgow-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/6430\/","title":{"rendered":"Vulnerable mental health service user exposes deadly “crisis” in Glasgow system"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marius Samavicius, 33, launched an investigation after a three-year battle for support, which saw their suicidal thoughts referenced as a \u201clovely wee email\u201d.<\/p>\n

04:30, 15 Jul 2025Updated 06:46, 15 Jul 2025<\/p>\n

\"MariusMarius Samavicius has slammed care at Glasgow’s Shawpark Resource Centre(Image: Alasdair MacLeod\/Daily Record)<\/p>\n

A deadly “crisis” over mental health care<\/a> in Scotland’s biggest city has been exposed by a service user who claims they was denied help in their darkest time.<\/p>\n

Marius Samavicius launched an investigation after a three-year battle for support in Glasgow<\/a>, which saw the 33-year-old’s suicidal thoughts referenced as a \u201clovely wee email\u201d.<\/p>\n

The artist found almost one in three of the more than 86,000 people seeking help from Glasgow\u2019s adult Community Mental Health Teams over the last seven years were rejected for care, while more than 1,100 people died under the service.<\/p>\n

The data – branded “heartbreaking” by campaigners<\/a> – revealed just 6% of those accepted for care were referred for psychology over the period, between 2018 and 2024.<\/p>\n

The figures come amid a backdrop of shattering cuts to other mental health services across the city and show the number of people seeking help was at its highest over the last two years – as were the number of rejections.<\/p>\n

\"MariusMarius demanded answers over mental health care in the city(Image: Alasdair MacLeod\/Daily Record)<\/p>\n

Marius, whose mental health battle led to them becoming homeless during Covid, said: \u201cAsking for mental health support takes courage and many stay silent out of fear or shame.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was shocked by the sheer number of people who died in care. How many died before seeking help, or after being rejected or discharged? The NHS doesn\u2019t publish this data.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NHS mental health system isn\u2019t broken – it\u2019s already collapsed and patients are left under the rubble.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no scan that proves mental illness, so people are often dismissed as dramatic, unstable, or \u2018not ready\u2019 for therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Data released under the Freedom of Information Act shows that 86,226 patients sought help through 10 of the city\u2019s adult centres during the period.<\/p>\n

The figures refer to Shawpark Resource Centre in Maryhill, North east Glasgow\u2019s Arran, Auchinlea and Springpark centres, the Arndale and Riverside centres in the North West of the city as well as Brand Street, Florence Street, Rossdale and the Stewart Centre in the south.<\/p>\n

Nearly one in three people (27,431) were rejected outright for care for various reasons while 9,649 were discharged from care for failing to attend appointments.<\/p>\n

A total of 1,103 patients died under the care of the service.<\/p>\n

Across nine of the centres, excluding Shawpark, which could not provide complete data, just 6% (5,310 patients) were allocated to psychology, while 7,135 completed treatment.<\/p>\n

The longest wait time for treatment hit 81 weeks – 4.5 times longer than Scotland\u2019s 18-week target.<\/p>\n

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Marius demanded answers after his battle for support through Shawpark.<\/p>\n

A subject access request exposed correspondence in which staff handling a complaint from Marius which referenced suicidal thoughts describe it as a \u201clovely wee email\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n

Marius said there was no subsequent risk assessment or welfare check.<\/p>\n

The artist claims they were discharged from the service three times through no fault of their own and were never put on the psychology waiting list.<\/p>\n

They said: \u201cWhen I was finally assessed by Shawpark, I was told that trauma therapy might make me worse. I felt dismissed and written off but charity LGBT Health and Wellbeing responded immediately. They gave me weekly sessions and, despite limited resources, offered around 20 sessions of wellbeing and trauma-focused support.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, the Glasgow Integrated Joint Board (IJB) for Health and Social Care services set a budget that included \u00a342 million worth of cuts across a range of services, including lifeline mental health services like counselling, psychotherapy and trauma recovery.<\/p>\n

Scottish Labour Mental Health spokesperson Paul Sweeney MSP said: \u201cThese heartbreaking figures show the cost of failing to support mental health services.<\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul Sweeney MSP(Image: Alasdair MacLeod\/Daily Record)<\/p>\n

\u201cServices like this are stretched to breaking point under the SNP, leaving far too many Scots falling through the cracks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith thousands of people being turned away from our health service in their hour of need, it\u2019s clear the founding principles of our NHS have been compromised.\u201d<\/p>\n

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde apologised to Marius for any distress caused but insisted that appropriate treatment was offered.<\/p>\n

A spokesman said: \u201cOur staff continue to work tirelessly to meet the increasing demands for psychological therapies and to ensure those who need to support of our teams are seen as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn line with the national policy, patients referred to our services will be assessed and if appropriate will be redirected or supported to alternative services. Those who are rejected include patients who are given advice about treatment, referred to other services, or in cases where a referral is inappropriate or incomplete.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Scottish Government said mental health was an \u201cabsolute priority\u201d and expects its overall spending to be over \u00a31.3 billion for the next year.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman said: \u201cEvery death by suicide is a tragedy and our heartfelt sympathies go out to all those affected by suicide. We expect anyone in distress or experiencing suicidal thoughts who presents themselves to NHS or community services to be treated with respect and receive timely access to high quality and safe mental health care, as close to home as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhilst one in two people start psychological therapy treatment within three weeks of referral, some people still wait too long, so we will continue to provide enhanced support to those health boards not on track to meet the standard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marius Samavicius, 33, launched an investigation after a three-year battle for support, which saw their suicidal thoughts referenced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,8328,137,514,515,8327],"class_list":{"0":"post-6430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-glasgow","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth","14":"tag-scottish-labour"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}